How the World Ends
by ifonly13
Summary: 'This is how the world ends/Not with a bang but a whimper.' - "The Hollow Men," T.S. Eliot :: Spoilers for post-'47 Seconds' and 'The Limey'


_**How the World Ends**_

* * *

This is how the world ends  
This is how the world ends  
This is how the world ends  
Not with a bang but a whimper.

- "The Hollow Men," T.S. Eliot

* * *

"It's just…" she sighs, twisting the end of her hair around her fingers, not meeting the man's gaze. "What's the point of taking steps backwards?"

"Kate, you can't change his behavior," Burke says softly.

"Then what do I do?" Kate asks on a groan. There's the start of a sob behind the words that she refuses to let escape. "Because I just can't figure it out." She wants to pace, to unfurl her legs from the chair. To act. Not this painful stalemate she and Castle seem to be stuck in. But instead, she picks at the sleeve of her sweater, stays curled up on the leather chair, letting her legs protect her heart from spilling out onto the floor.

"Have you talked to him yet?"

"I tried!" she nearly shouts. "Then he waltzed off to a dinner date with Miss Airline!" Finally, she looks at the soft-spoken, quiet man. "How am I supposed to compete with someone without…"

"Without what, Kate?"

Figures he would push for her to self-diagnose, to fumble through her own thoughts until she came up with the response rather than him telling her straight-out. "My problems," she murmurs, swiping a hand under her eyes, the sleeve of the sweater pulled over her palm. "He deserves someone unburdened by my issues. That's why he's pulling away. He's done waiting."

Burke narrows his eyes, visible even in the dim lighting of the room. "Everyone has baggage. That has never stopped people from getting into committed, healthy relationships. Why is that any different from you and Castle?"

"It… It just is." The excuse sounds pitiful even to her ears. "Normal people don't have my baggage."

"You mean your mother's case," he says. A statement, not a question. After nearly a year of hours spent in this room together, he knows her problems almost as well as she does. "But you're working on that. So what else is different?"

Kate twists the sleeve between her fingers. It'll be stretched out but she doesn't care right now. "He's with Miss Airline. She's fun and uncomplicated," Kate mocks. "The exact opposite of me."

"So what are you going to do?" he asks, watching her carefully.

Part of her wants to say something about going out, getting drunk enough not to care about him, and acting as fun and uncomplicated as he seems to want in his life. She wants to shove the memory of him from her mind. To move on. But what she doesn't want to do is to become what he has – a shell of who he used to be.

"Wait for him to come to his senses," she says. "Eventually we have to line up again, right? So I'll wait for him."

* * *

Instead of going home after the session, Kate drives across town to their coffee shop. It's late but she doesn't care. The shop is open late and she's able to duck in for the cup of coffee without waiting in a long line behind the commuters or artists looking for inspiration in the comfortable armchairs.

His place isn't too far from the shop – probably one of the reasons he picked it as their go-to location for caffeine – so Kate decides to walk rather than drive the few blocks over to the loft. April is chilly but she huddles further into the warmth of her grey coat and lets the heat of the coffee seep into her fingers as she finds her way to the familiar brick building.

Eduardo nods as she heads for the stairs, needing the extra few seconds to think rather than flying up the floors. Her heels are muted against the carpeting in the hallway as she stops outside of his door.

It's clear that he doesn't want her company. He races from the precinct at any chance of escape. Lunch dates, dinner dates, fundraisers, nights at jazz clubs. But damn if his absence doesn't hurt more than the angry looks she gets when he's not shooting her looks of completely masked emotion. At least he's there.

She'll wait. He waited for her and whether his waiting period is over, she'll return the favor.

Kate knocks on the door, steps back to wait for the wave of disgust to hit her when he opens the door.

"Oh. Hi, Beckett," says Martha when she swings the door open. The older woman is dressed in a sequin-covered top that flashes in the dim lighting of the loft. "He's not available."

When Martha goes to close the door on Kate's face, a movement that hurts just as much as Castle's silence because even his mother hates her now, the detective wedges a foot in between the frame and the door. Martha's mouth drops open. "I just need to give him this." She holds up the coffee cup. "That's it."

Martha's face loses some of its anger when she sees the offering. She moves further into the apartment, waving a hand in. "He's in the office."

"Thanks, Martha," Kate says, swallowing and nodding a little. The lights in the study are low and the door is closed so Kate pauses there as well. Hand him the coffee and leave, she reminds herself. That's all that she needs to do. Continue the conversation through the only means that she knows. She knocks lightly with her free hand, raising her eyes to the ceiling in a silent plea before anything else happens.

The door to the office opens quickly. "Mother, I said-" He trails off when he sees who is really there. "Beckett."

The change in his tone is startling and Kate's surprised he can turn on a dime like that. From teasing with his mother to complete distain with her. She tries a smile, holding the cup out to him, hand hovering in the middle of the distance between them. "Here."

He doesn't move to take the coffee cup.

Kate forces her face not to drop. If he's not going to show emotion, neither is she. But it hurts that he simply stares at her as she waits for him to relieve her of the coffee. She can feel Martha watching from the living room and Kate can't figure out if she's trying to send her son signals to take the cup so the other woman can get out of their home or if she's still glaring at Kate's back.

The staring contest lasts a full two minutes before he takes the cup. Their fingers brush along the heated cardboard and Kate tampers down the old flare of emotion that zips up her arm.

His voice is rusty when he mumbles, "Thanks" and turns back into the office. The door is left open but Kate feels the dismissal as strongly as if he had said "get out."

She forces another smile for Martha with a quick nod before she leaves. Once she's outside the apartment, the red door closed behind her, Kate slumps against the wall. She draws a shaky breath, stuffs her trembling hands into her pockets, and pushes off toward the stairs.

First step.

* * *

He doesn't show up with Jacinda. She gives him a single point for the fact that he is the only one who gets off the elevator on their floor. No blonde hanging on his arm or taking his keys from his fingers with a giggle or promising to but his leftovers in the fridge when she heads back to the loft.

Kate nearly takes the point away when he rounds the corner with his hands stuffed into his pockets. No coffee. She swallows the disappointment quickly, flashing him a smile to cover the emotion. "Morning, Castle."

No reaction. "Morning." He sits in the chair, the chair that he has been inching further and further from where it used to touch her desk. Even that hurts.

So she nods, the barest bob of her head, before she turns back to the computer monitor. It stings already and she wonders how the hell he managed it for the past year.

"We have a case?" he asks, eyes glancing toward her.

"Nope. Just paperwork."

Castle gets up and Kate feels her throat tighten. He's going to leave. He's going to go back to Jacinda and roll around in his loft with the stewardess and have fun. Uncomplicated fun. She takes a deep breath, prepares to grin away the pain.

"Guess we'll need coffee, huh?" He's off toward the break room, dodging the uniforms strong-arming a man into one of the interrogation rooms.

Kate has her face back in the mask of boredom with paperwork, hiding the surprise and frustration of his latest action, by the time he nudges her mug of coffee against her elbow. She smiles, one of the thin ones she hasn't had to use since before her shooting. "Thanks," she says, wrapping her fingers around the warm porcelain.

He doesn't move from his chair the entire day. She spends the time whittling down the pile of unfiled paperwork that had been gathering on her desk over the past week while trying not to look over at him in between forms. The few times she takes the risk, he's playing with his phone. Her thoughts shoot straight to texting Jacinda plans for the night and she expects him to dart off with every quiet vibration of the phone.

But he doesn't. He sticks there, getting up only when she sets down the empty coffee mug to get a refill.

Kate wants to hate him for it. Blowing ice cold then warming up to her again in the timespan of a single night. But he's here and not tumbling with an airline stewardess under his sheets and that's better than nothing.

"You want anything for lunch?" she asks tentatively, pulling her arm through the sleeve of her coat. Same grey coat from yesterday, a black and white scarf wrapped around her neck as she tugs her hair from under the collar.

He gets up, shrugging. "I think I have plans."

Her heart drops into her toes and Kate finds herself unconsciously blinking back tears. Of course he does. "Okay. You gonna be back this afternoon?"

"Actually, I was hoping I could join you for lunch."

Kate nods, failing at hiding the surprise. "Uh. Sure."

They stand further apart in the elevator than they normally did. It's Castle that moves into the corner of the car when Kate shifts to press the button for the lobby, his hands in the pockets of his dress pants, eyes avoiding her gaze. If one of them doesn't start talking, this was going to be an awkward lunch.

He steers her toward a tiny coffee shop that she hadn't known existed three blocks from the precinct, holding the door for her. "Grab a seat. I'll get us something to eat," he says softly.

Kate finds a table next to the wide windows, tucking her hair behind her ear as she watches the people outside. She keeps her coat on, convincing herself that she's cold and she isn't leaving it on as a quick escape. Her fingers trace the seam of the deep green armchair, forming swirls by rubbing the fabric the opposite way. Then she runs her hand back over it, righting everything, erasing the patterns.

"Here." He slides into the seat opposite her, putting a plate of cookies between them along with glasses of iced tea. She raises a brow at the choices for lunch, ranging from chocolate chip to oatmeal raisin. "What? Cookies have dairy products in them. They're healthy."

For the briefest of moments, Kate sees a glimpse of the old Castle. The one that cracks stupid jokes that still make her smile. The one insisting that pirates would totally beat out the ninjas in a battle. And now the one that feeds her cookies for lunch. It takes all of her willpower to not grin as she takes one of the oatmeal raisin cookies and breaks off a quarter of it. "Sure they are."

He goes for the double chocolate chip cookie, picking off one of the chunks of chocolate to pop in his mouth first. It's kind of adorable. She wants to reach out and brush back that lock of hair that has flopped over his forehead, to trace the little scar over his brow. Instead, she busies her hands with her own cookie again, chewing the piece while looking back outside.

"Why did you come by last night?" he asks finally, breaking the silence.

Kate looks over at him, mind running through the possible answers. The truth. The truth is best. "Symbolism, Castle. As a writer, you should know about that." His brows pull together. She balances the tip of her forefinger on the lip of the glass. "Coffee. I've always thought it meant something more than just coffee. For us, at least." She tries to meet his gaze, finds him watching her thoughtfully. "You usually bring it for me. I figured it was time to return the favor."

"What do you think it means?"

"Comfort. Understanding." Love.

"Ah," he sighs, setting the cookie back on the plate. "And you thought I needed comfort and understanding?"

"Yes."

Her single word answer makes him look over at her. Her eyes are steady. The truth is tough but it's good.

"Why, Kate?" His hand drops from around the glass of iced tea to the wrought iron tabletop. "What made you think that I need any of that?"

"Because of how you're acting," she says quietly. "Pushing me away. I just wanted to let you know that I'm still here for you. Even if you don't want me to be."

Castle's hand covers her fingertips suddenly, wrapping around the slim digits loosely. "What makes you think that I don't want you around?"

Kate pulls her hand from under his, getting up. "Nothing. Nothing, Castle. Come back to the Twelfth if you want."

"Kate, wait!" he calls, scrambling after her as she pushes out of the coffee shop just as a young woman and a little girl jostle in through the door.

She keeps walking until she remembers her promise to Burke. She'll wait for him. But God, is it supposed to be this painful to wait for him to see the light? Still, she halts halfway down the sidewalk, turns to see him jogging toward her.

He's huffing a little, his breath shallow as he asks, "What was that about?"

"Nothing. Just an observation."

"I'm not pushing you away," he defends, following after her.

That makes her stop short. "Not pushing me away? Castle, that's exactly what you're doing." He opens his mouth but she holds a finger up. "I'm a trained observer. Think before you speak here."

"Take your own advice," he growls, stalking past her to the corner of the street, hailing a cab.

"What does *that* mean?" Kate asks, running to catch him before he can get one of the taxis to pull over. He ignores her, waving his hand in the air in an attempt to flag down an empty vehicle. Annoyed and confused, Kate steps off the curb and whistles sharply. Immediately, a cab pulls over. He doesn't push her out of the way to get in but levels a glare at her instead. Kate shifts back, surprised at the anger suddenly lacing the blue of his eyes. "Castle, can we talk about this?"

He swallows, then holds the door to the cab open. "Fine."

The ride to SoHo is silent sparked with tension. Not the tension they've maintained for the past four years. This one burns her skin, makes her want to curl up and cry. The driver drops them at his building. Kate pays before he can, ignoring the warning look he gives her before she gets out.

The apartment is empty, dark. Neither of them turn the lights on as she follows him into his office and lets him close the door behind them. Kate perches on the back of the couch angled to face the television in the corner, crossing her arms as he leans against the desk.

"Talk."

"What'd you mean, take my own advice?" she asks. It's hard to find his eyes in the darkness but she tries.

"Thinking before you speak, Kate," he sighs. When she doesn't respond, he continues. "I heard you. A week ago. Through the glass."

Her heart stops and it's a minor miracle she manages to stay upright. "You heard," she repeats dumbly, pushing the words past the lump in her throat. "That's why you've been…"

"Pulling away? Yeah." The venom drips from his voice as he shoves off the desk. "I heard you. You remember everything. Since when?"

"Pretty much when I woke up." She takes a step backwards as he paces toward her. "I couldn't… There was…"

"There was what, Kate?" he spits out, his foot bumping hers as he crowds her against the wall. "Go ahead and say something like 'too much going on' or 'Josh.' Tell the truth."

She swallows, shaking her head. "Castle, I'm sor-"

"Sorry?"

Kate feels the wall halt her movement backwards and a jolt of fear shoots through her body. "Yes," she says firmly, counteracting the alarms going off in her mind. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for lying to you and I'm sorry for not telling you back in May and I'm sorry." He steps closer until his body is nearly pressed against hers. "Don't touch me, Castle," she whispers, her voice shaking too much to be taken seriously.

His fingers brush under her jacket, skating over the fabric of her shirt. The contact makes her shiver, the urge to lean into the touch overwhelming the instinct to run.

"Don't."

He pretends not to hear her. Poetic justice, she figures, even as his face dips so that his nose lines up with hers. "Say it, Kate," he murmurs into her ear.

She turns her head to the side, as much as she can with his body holding her there. Her eyes flutter closed, unable to meet the dark mix of anger swirling in his eyes. Her breath catches as he lets his lips skim her cheek down to her neck. The hot rush of air sweeps over her skin a moment before he presses a kiss to the place where her neck flares out to her shoulder, his teeth scraping the skin lightly.

"Just three words. Just say the three words."

"No," she gasps, her hands finally finding the strength to inch up to his shoulders, ready to push him away.

He moves closer, trapping her hands between their bodies. "I'm not letting you leave until I hear you say it." His lips hover over hers, so close to covering hers.

Kate shakes her head, slowly, eyes closed against the burn of his. "We need to stop."

When he continues to try and get their lips to meet, Kate shoves him away from her. He stumbles, catches himself on the couch. Her breathing is labored, unsteady as she lets her head fall back against the wall.

"It's not the right time," she whispers.

"Is it ever going to be the right time with you?" he returns, running a hand through his hair. "How long am I supposed to wait?"

"Until we're not both angry at one another for starters!" Kate pushes off from the wall, starts toward the door to leave. Running again, she thinks. But at least she's running to someone who isn't Miss Airline or whichever of his exes who happens to be in town tonight. "See you tomorrow, Castle."

She gets to the apartment door, her hand on the knob, when he speaks again. "I still love you, Kate."

With a swipe of her hand under her eyes, Kate turns to face the study. "Why do we keep hurting each other then?"

He laughs, short and humorlessly. "That's what we do. We hurt each other." Castle leans his shoulder against the bookshelf, hands in his pockets. "But it doesn't change the facts. I may hate you a little right now, but I still love you."

"I've gotta get back to work," she says, a lame excuse to escape.

This time, he doesn't stop her.

* * *

She hates morning appointments with Burke. They tire her out and everything else for the rest of the day is harder than usual.

Which is why she's stuck staring at the board, flipping the Expo marker in her hand, and not making any connections between the facts written up in front of her. It should be an easy case. It came off as an easy case. But everything was off.

"Hey," he says from behind her.

Kate nearly drops the marker as she turns to face him. He hadn't been in since that day a week ago and she couldn't blame him. Why torture himself by being in the same building as someone who refused to admit that she returned feelings? "Hi."

"Brought you coffee." He sets the cup on her desk right next to her mug of the same liquid, long gone cold.

"Thank you."

He circles around the desk, pushing his chair back into place against the side of the beaten-up metal before leaning on it. "New case?"

Kate walks him through the details, trying to use the exercise to lead herself to the right conclusion. Yvette had been found with a single knife wound to her stomach next to her boyfriend Thomas, who had the traces of poison in his system.

"_Romeo and Juliet_," Castle says quickly. She raises a brow but he points to the board as if all of the evidence he needs is right there. "Well, minus the whole 'I thought she was dead first' thing."

"And the fact that Romeo isn't poisoned in the play," Kate adds.

Castle holds his hands up. "Okay, so there are a few differences, but it's basically _Romeo and Juliet_. We just need to find someone who didn't want Yvette and Thomas together and we've got our killer. Our version of the Montagues or the Capulets."

Kate nods toward one of the women in the suspect column. "Yvette's mother. Apparently she hated Thomas and was set on keeping him and her daughter apart."

"Hmmm… Yvette Capulet doesn't have the right ring to it," he muses. When she glances at him, going to sit down at her desk to pull up the information from the interview with Yvette's parents, Castle shrugs. "Just saying. Though Juliet Capulet doesn't sound right either." He sits next to her, finally close enough to the desk that she could reach out and touch his arm, and picks up one of the legal pads she has stashed under piles of folders.

Kate gets Ryan to bring Yvette's mother into the precinct but Castle decides to stay at her desk rather than join in on the interrogation. Baby steps, she reminds herself. He's here. That's enough.

When she returns with a signed confession from the mother, he's gone. She tries to convince herself that he's just getting something to eat or Alexis needed him and that he's not back with Miss Airline. Her coffee has been refilled so that it burns her tongue as she takes a sip.

"You got the paperwork?" asks Esposito from his desk, feet kicked up onto the surface of the desk as he watches Ryan take down the information from the whiteboard.

She nods. "I've already got enough of it. A few more forms won't kill me." So she searches her desk for the right sheets of paper, realizing what a mess the thing has become over the past weeks. She makes a mental reminder to take an hour to clean it up as she rifles through the papers. On the top of the pile is the legal pad Castle had been playing with before the interrogation. The first sheet is blank but she can see the scrawl of his pen under the thin yellow paper.

Curiosity gets the best of her and she flips the first slip over the hard cardboard edge of the pad. There are not plot points for Nikki Heat there nor are there silly drawings of stick figures. Instead, what he has written out sends ice down her body.

He's recreated a murderboard. Except instead of their _Romeo and Juliet_-esque murder, the names are familiar. Her's. Montgomery's and the other cops. Lockwood's. Her mom's. There's a stranger's name, a Smith, added to the list.

Kate drops the pad of paper on her keyboard with a clack. No. He made her stop. Asked her to hold off looking into the case. And she did. She hasn't looked at her make-shift murderboard since her first day back.

This was how he felt. It must have been. Betrayal and hurt and anger and the urge to rip her throat out.

"Uh, guys?" she says, getting up and pulling her coat on. "Can you handle that paperwork? I've got something I need to do."

She doesn't wait for them to confirm that they'll take over the D5s before she grabs up the legal pad and heads for the elevator. Kate has no idea where he is but she figures she might as well check the usual spots. His place, the sandwich shop he loves to get lunch at, the Old Haunt. But she starts at the most likely location and parks her car outside of the apartment building.

Kate double-parks, tossing the laminated NYPD parking plate on the dashboard, and runs toward the elevator.

"Miss Beckett, he said not to let-" starts Eduardo, stepping out from behind his desk to try and stop Kate.

"I don't care what he said. It's important."

She rests her head against the wall of the elevator car on the ride up. Give him a chance, she tells herself. Let him try to explain his reasoning. Wait for him to come to his senses.

This time he answers the door. His hair is a mess from his hands running through it, his shirtsleeves are rolled up to his elbows, and his eyes are shining with the type of sparkle they only get when they're on a roll with a case. "Kate." He sounds surprised, blinking at her as she stands in the hallway, not moving to get into the loft. "What're you doing here?"

Kate doesn't have to speak. She lifts the legal pad up and sees his eyes dim. "Yeah. Can I come in?"

He steps aside and nods. "Sure," he says quietly. "Listen, can you let me tell you why I'm doing this?"

"Yes."

Castle's head jerks back a little when she sets the pad of paper on the back of the couch. "You'll let me?"

"Yes. I mean," she says, "you must have a pretty good reason, right?"

He walks toward the open office door and she follows, holding the legal pad against her chest. The storyboard is on, the same names up on the screen as he wrote out on the paper. Pictures accompany each name, glowing dimly. She pauses in the doorway.

"Castle…" she starts.

"I wanted to help."

"You're putting yourself in the line of fire. You dying is not helpful."

He steps toward her, shaking his head. "I'm not going to die, Kate."

"You can't know that. They won't stop even if it's you instead of me who is running the investigation. They don't care," she ends on a sigh. "Castle, I'd rather not get that closure and have you alive than have to live the rest of my life without you but know who had my mom killed." She puts the legal pad on his desk and hits the 'Power' button on the remote for the storyboard. "Stop. Now."

"I can't." Castle wraps his fingers around her wrists, giving her a gentle tug so that she faces him rather than the now-dark board. "You investigate and Smith can't guarantee your safety. The same goes," he says, releasing one of her hands to tip her chin up to face her. "I can't bear to think of a world without you in it."

"What if neither of us looks into it?" she proposes. "You shut this down here, I take down my board at home. No more investigating for either of us." He opens his mouth to protest and she pushes up on her toes to feather a kiss over his lips. He goes still as she drops back on her heels. "It's the only solution."

Castle's fingers trail down her wrist to tangle with her fingers. "You're okay with it? Not finding out?"

"If it means you stay with me, alive, yes." Kate let her head fall onto his shoulder. "I'll stop. But I'm still angry with you."

"I'm angry with you."

She laughs, her lips skating over the skin exposed by his shirt at his neck. "We're on the same page then."

"Been long enough, hasn't it?" he murmurs into her ear. In a smooth movement, Castle hooks his hands under her thighs and lifts her up onto the surface of his desk, sweeping a hand over the smooth wood to clear it. His fingers are gentle as he brushes them over her hair, tangling in the strands and pulling lightly, drawing a quiet whimper from her. "I missed you."

Kate's nose nudges his as she tilts her head enough to kiss him again, her calves circling his thighs to pull him closer. "I love you," she whispers against his lips. "I love you so much that sometimes I hate you but in the end, I do."

She can feel his smile against her mouth. "Little early for those two words, don't you think?"

"Getting a head start on you this time. Because someday, Castle, it'll be just the right time."


End file.
